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to see how many immortal productions them. Those who will not stoop to have, within a few months, been ga- the baseness of the modern fashion are thered to the Poems of Blackmore and too often discouraged. Those who do the novels of Mrs. Behn; how many stoop to it are always degraded. "profound views of human nature," We have of late observed with great and "exquisite delineations of fashion-pleasure some symptoms which lead us able manners," and "vernal, and sunny, to hope that respectable literary men and refreshing thoughts," and "high of all parties are beginning to be impaimaginings," and "young breathings," tient of this insufferable nuisance. And and "embodyings," and "pinings," we purpose to do what in us lies for the and "minglings with the beauty of the abating of it. We do not think that we universe," and "harmonies which dis- can more usefully assist in this good work solve the soul in a passionate sense of than by showing our honest countrymen loveliness and divinity,” the world has what that sort of poetry is which puffing contrived to forget. The names of the can drive through eleven editions, and books and of the writers are buried how easily any bellman might, if a in as deep an oblivion as the name of bellman would stoop to the necessary the builder of Stonchenge. Some of degree of meanness, become a" masterthe well puffed fashionable novels of spirit of the age." We have no enmity eighteen hundred and twenty-nine hold to Mr. Robert Montgomery. We know the pastry of eighteen hundred and nothing whatever about him, except thirty; and others, which are now ex-what we have learned from his books, tolled in language almost too high- and from the portrait prefixed to one flown for the merits of Don Quixote, of them, in which he appears to be will, we have no doubt, line the trunks doing his very best to look like a man of eighteen hundred and thirty-one. of genius and sensibility, though with But, though we have no apprehensions less success than his strenuous exerthat puffing will ever confer permanent tions deserve. We select him, because reputation on the undeserving, we still his works have received more enthusithink its influence most pernicious. astic praise, and have deserved more Men of real merit will, if they perse- unmixed contempt, than any which, as vere, at last reach the station to which far as our knowledge extends, have they are entitled, and intruders will be appeared within the last three or four ejected with contempt and derision. years. His writing bears the same reBut it is no small evil that the avenues lation to poetry which a Turkey carpet to fame should be blocked up by a bears to a picture. There are colours swarm of noisy, pushing, elbowing pre- in the Turkey carpet out of which a tenders, who, though they will not picture might be made. There are ultimately be able to make good their words in Mr. Montgomery's writing own entrance, hinder, in the mean which, when disposed in certain orders time, those who have a right to enter. and combinations, have made, and will All who will not disgrace themselves by again make, good poetry. But, as joining in the unseemly scuffle must ex- they now stand, they seem to be put pect to be at first hustled and shouldered together on principle in such a manner back. Some men of talents, accord-as to give no image of any thing "in ingly, turn away in dejection from pur-the heavens above, or in the earth besuits in which success appears to bear neath, or in the waters under the earth." no proportion to desert. Others em. The poem on the Omnipresence of ploy in self-defence the means by which the Deity commences with a descripcompetitors, far inferior to themselves, tion of the creation, in which we can appear for a time to obtain a decided find only one thought which has the advantage. There are few who have least pretension to ingenuity, and that sufficient confidence in their own powers one thought is stolen from Dryden, and and sufficient elevation of mind to wait marred in the stealing: with secure and contemptuous patience, while dunce after dunce presses before

"Last, softly beautiful, as music's close, Angelic woman into being rose."

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And, while Creation stagger'd at his uod,
Mock the dread presence of the mighty
God!

We hear Him in the wind-heaved ocean's
roar,

Hurling her billowy crags upon the shore;
We hear Him in the riot of the blast,
And shake, while rush the raving whirl-
winds past!"

If Mr. Robert Montgomery's genius
were not far too free and aspiring to
be shackled by the rules of syntax, we
should suppose that it is at the nod of
the Atheist that creation staggers. But
Mr. Robert Montgomery's readers must
take such grammar as they can get,
and be thankful.

A few more lines bring us to another Sir instance of unprofitable theft. Walter Scott has these lines in the

With fearful gaze, still be it mine to see How all is fill'd and vivified by Thee; Upon thy mirror, earth's majestic view, To paint Thy Presence, and to feel it too." The last two lines contain an excel-Lord of the Isles: lent specimen of Mr. Robert Montgomery's Turkey carpet style of writing. The majestic view of earth is the mirror of God's presence; and on this mirror Mr. Robert Montgomery paints God's presence. The use of a mirror, we submit, is not to be painted upon.

"The dew that on the violet lies,

Mocks the dark lustre of thine eyes."

This is pretty taken separately, and, as is always the case with the good things of good writers, much prettier in its place than can even be conceived by those who see it only detached from the context. Now for Mr. Montgomery:

"And the bright dew-bead on the bramble lies,

Like liquid rapture upon beauty's eyes."

A few more lines, as bad as those which we have quoted, bring us to one of the most amusing instances of literary pilfering which we remember. It might be of use to plagiarists to know, as a general rule, that what they steal The comparison of a violet, bright is, to employ a phrase common in ad- with the dew, to a woman's eyes, is as vertisements, of no use to any but the perfect as a comparison can be. Sir right owner. We never fell in, how-Walter's lines are part of a song adever, with any plunderer who so little understood how to turn his booty to good account as Mr. Montgomery. Lord Byron, in a passage which every body knows by heart, has said, addressing the sea,

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dressed to a woman at daybreak, when the violets are bathed in dew; and the comparison is therefore peculiarly natural and graceful. Dew on a bramble is no more like a woman's eyes than dew anywhere else. There is a very pretty Eastern tale of which the fate of plagiarists often reminds us. The slave of a magician saw his master wave his wand, and heard him give orders to the spirits who arose at the summons. The slave stole the wand, and waved it himself in the air; but he had not observed that his master

used the left hand for that purpose. The spirits thus irregularly summoned tore the thief to pieces instead of obeying his orders. There are very few who can safely venture to conjure with the rod of Sir Walter; and Mr. Robert Montgomery is not one of them.

Mr. Campbell, in one of his most pleasing pieces, has this line,

"The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky."

The thought is good, and has a very striking propriety where Mr. Campbell has placed it, in the mouth of a soldier telling his dream. But, though, Shakspeare assures us that " every true man's apparel fits your thief." it is by no means the case, as we have already seen, that every true poet's similitude fits your plagiarist. Let us see how Mr. Robert Montgomery uses the image:

"Ye quenchless stars! so eloquently bright, Untroubled sentries of the shadowy night, While half the world is lapp'd in downy

dreams,

And round the lattice creep your midnight

beams,

How sweet to gaze upon your placid eyes,
In lambent beauty looking from the skies."

Certainly the ideas of eloquence, of untroubled repose, of placid eyes, on the lambent beauty on which it is sweet to gaze, harmonize admirably with the idea of a sentry.

"Yes! pause and think, within one fleeting
hour,

How vast a universe obeys Thy power;
Unseen, but felt, Thine interfused control
Works in each atom, and pervades the
whole;

Expands the blossom, and erects the tree,
Conducts each vapour, and commands
each sea,

Beams in each ray, bids whirlwinds be unfurl'd,

Unrols the thunder, and upheaves a world!"

No field-preacher surely ever carried his irreverent familiarity so far as to bid the Supreme Being stop and think on the importance of the interests which are under his care. The grotesque indecency of such an address throws into shade the subordinate absurdities of the passage, the unfurling of whirlwinds, the unrolling of thunder, and the upheaving of worlds.

Then comes a curious specimen of our poet's English :

"Yet not alone created realins engage
Thy faultless wisdom, grand, primoval
sage!

For all the thronging woes to life allied
Thy mercy tempers, and Thy cares pro
vide."

We would not be understood, how- We should be glad to know what the ever, to say, that Mr. Robert Mont-word "For means here. If it is a gomery cannot make similitudes for preposition, it makes nonsense of the himself. A very few lines further on, words," Thy mercy tempers." If it is we find one which has every mark of an adverb, it makes nonsense of the originality, and on which, we will be words, "Thy cares provide." bound, none of the poets whom he has plundered will ever think of making reprisals :

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We take this to be, on the whole, the worst similitude in the world. In the first place, no stream meanders, or can possibly meander, level with its fount. In the next place, if streams did meander level with their founts, no two motions can be less like each other than that of meandering level and that of mounting upwards.

We have then an apostrophe to the Deity, couched in terms which, in any writer who dealt in meanings, we should call profane, but to which we suppose Mr. Robert Montgomery attaches no idea whatever.

Mr.

These beauties we have taken, almost at random, from the first part of the poem. The second part is a series of descriptions of various events, a battle, a murder, an execution, a marriage, a funeral, and so forth. Robert Montgomery terminates each of these descriptions by assuring us that the Deity was present at the battle, murder, execution, marriage, or funeral in question. And this proposition, which might be safely predicated of every event that ever happened or ever will happen, forms the only link which connects these descriptions with the subject or with each other.

How the descriptions are executed our readers are probably by this time able to conjecture. The battle is made up of the battles of all ages and nations: "red-mouthed cannons, uproaring to the clouds," and "hands grasp

ing firm the glittering shield." The only military operations of which this part of the poem reminds us, are those which reduced the Abbey of Quedlinburgh to submission, the Templar with his cross, the Austrian and Prussian grenadiers in full uniform, and Curtius and Dentatus with their battering-ram. We ought not to pass unnoticed the slain war-horse, who will no more "Roll his red eye, and rally for the fight;" or the slain warrior who, while "lying on his bleeding breast," contrives to "stare ghastly and grimly on the skies." As to this last exploit, we can only say, as Dante did on a similar occasion,

"Forse per forza gia di' parlasia

"

Si stravolse così alcun del tutto: Ma io nol vidi, nè credo che sia.' The tempest is thus described: "But lo! around the marsh'lling clouds unite,

Like thick battalions halting for the fight; The sun sinks back, the tempest spirits sweep

Fierce through the air and flutter on the

deep.

Till from their caverns rush the maniac blasts,

Tear the loose sails, and split the creaking masts,

And the lash'd billows, rolling in a train, Rear their white heads, and race along the main !"

What, we should like to know, is the difference between the two operations which Mr. Robert Montgomery so accurately distinguishes from each other, the fierce sweeping of the tempest-spirits through the air, and the rushing of the maniac blasts from their caverns? And why does the former operation end exactly when the latter

commences?

We cannot stop over each of Mr. Robert Montgomery's descriptions. We have a shipwrecked sailor, who "visions a viewless temple in the air;" a murderer who stands on a heath, "with ashy lips, in cold convulsion spread;" a pious man, to whom, as he lies in bed at night,

"The panorama of past life appears, Warms his pure mind, and melts it into tears;'

a traveller, who loses his way, owing to the thickness of the "cloud-batta

lion," and the want of "heaven-lampa, to beam their holy light." We have a description of a convicted felon, stolen from that incomparable passage in Crabbe's Borough, which has made many a rough and cynical reader cry like a child. We can, however, conscientiously declare that persons of the most excitable sensibility may safely venture upon Mr. Robert Montgomery's version. Then we have the " poor, mindless, pale-faced maniac boy," who "Rolls his vacant eye,

To greet the glowing fancies of the sky." What are the glowing fancies of the sky? And what is the meaning of the two lines which almost immediately follow ?

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A soulless thing, a spirit of the woods, He loves to commune with the fields and floods."

How can a soulless thing be a spirit? Then comes a panegyric on the Sunday. A baptism follows; after that a marriage: and we then proceed, in due course, to the visitation of the sick, and the burial of the dead.

Often as Death has been personified, Mr. Montgomery has found something new to say about him.

"O Death! thou dreadless vanquisher of earth,

The Elements shrank blasted at thy birth! Careering round the world like tempest wind,

Martyrs before, and victims strew'd behind;

Ages on ages cannot grapple thee, Dragging the world into eternity!" If there be any one line in this passage about which we are more in the dark than about the rest, it is the fourth. What the difference may be between the victims and the martyrs, and why the martyrs are to lie before Death, and the victims behind him, are to us great mysteries.

We now come to the third part, of which we may say with honest Cassio,

66

Why, this is a more excellent song than the other." Mr. Robert Montgomery is very severe on the infidels, and undertakes to prove, that, as he elegantly expresses it,

"One great Enchanter helm'd the harmoni. ous whole."

What an enchanter has to do with K

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Designless, self-created, and forlorn;
Like to the flashing bubbles on a stream,
Fire from the cloud, or phantom in a
dream?"

We should be sorry to stake our faith
in a higher Power on Mr. Robert Mont-
gomery's logic. He informs us that
lightning is designless and self-created.
If he can believe this, we cannot con-
ceive why he may not believe that the
whole universe is designless and self-
created. A few lines before, he tells
us that it is the Deity who bids" thun-
der rattle from the skiey deep." His
theory is therefore this, that God made
the thunder, but that the lightning

made itself.

But Mr. Robert Montgomery's metaphysics are not at present our game He proceeds to set forth the fearful effects of Atheism.

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ous arm,

And thou, Rebellion, welter in thy storm:
Awake, ye spirits of avenging crime;
Burst from your bonds, and battle with
the time!"

Mr. Robert Montgomery is fond of personification, and belongs, we need not say, to that school of poets who hold that nothing more is necessary to a personification in poetry than to begin a word with a capital letter. Murder may, without impropriety, bare her arm, as she did long ago, in Mr. Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. But what possible motive Rebellion can have for weltering in her storm, what avenging crime may be, who its spirits may be, why they should burst from their bonds, what their bonds may be, why they should battle with the time, what the time may be, and what a battle between the time and the spirits of avenging crime would resemble, we must confess ourselves quite unable to

understand.

And here let Memory turn her tearful glance

On the dark horrors of tumultuous France,

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When gush'd the life-blood from thine angel form,

And martyr'd beauty perish'd in the storm,

Once worshipp'd paragon of all who saw, Thy look obedience, and thy smile a law." What is the distinction between the the foul orgies are to picture? Why foul orgies and the raging havoc which does Fright go behind Rebellion, and Murder before? Why should not Murder fall behind Fright? Or why should not all the three walk abreast? We have read of a hero who had

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